The Ghost of Christmas Presents
by Divine Sally Bowles
Summary: Post-Father's Day. Maybe he can't do anything for the Rose he knows, but perhaps he can do a few things for the family Pete left behind.


**A/N: Written for Challenge 71, The Ninth Doctor, over at Livejournal's_ then_theres_us_. The pictures used as prompts were a photo of Rudyard Kipling's _Just So Stories_ and Frances Hodgson Burnett's _The Secret Garden_ side by side, and a man and girl hugging in a garden. **

* * *

><p><span>The Ghost of Christmas Presents<span>

It doesn't take long for the Doctor to realize that he hates seeing Rose Tyler upset.

It's one of the things he loves about her—her compassion, the way she feels so deeply for those who have to perish on their adventures together. It turns out that one of the things he loves about her can also be his undoing, because seeing Rose this crushed over losing her father just isn't something he can bear.

He finds her curled in the console chair one morning, hair in a messy ponytail, circles under her eyes, reading _The Secret Garden_. He recognizes it as the copy he keeps in the TARDIS library—he'd met Burnett once; lovely woman—and she's reading it so intently that she doesn't look up when he comes in. He treads carefully, not wanting to disturb her, but he can't help but notice that she didn't sleep at all the night before. He'd heard her restless movements, but he hadn't gone to her—they'd just be retreading every conversation they'd had in the past few days—and now he's kicking himself.

She reaches the end of a chapter and looks up at him, a certain pleading expression in her eyes, the one he's come to realize he can't resist. It's the same expression she had when she'd asked to go see her father, when he _hadn't_ resisted, against his better judgment. "Can you do me a favor?" she asks, and he waits for her to continue. "Can you take me back to the church? The one where…" She swallows, struggling with the words—either not used to them or not wanting to use them at all. "… where it happened? Present day, I mean…"

She wants to go home. He's been expecting it, but it still stings more than he'd thought it would, leaves him wondering if she'll decide to leave here and now. He wonders if the words he'd said to Adam (_"I only take the best. I've got Rose."_) will come back to haunt him, because even the best can't handle something like what Rose had been through, seeing her father die right in front of her, _twice_.

"Are you sure that won't make it worse?" he asks, tamping down the concern and telling himself he won't go with her, that maybe letting her alone is the best he can do for her right now.

She just gives him a look, a look that says that nothing can make things worse than they are right now anyway, and he lets her go.

When she leaves, he stands at the street corner, watching her walk to the church. He knows she can take care of herself, but he still feels the urge to protect her, probably because he hadn't shielded her from seeing something she should have never had to see. If she hadn't been traveling with him, she'd have never had the chance to go back to see her father, wouldn't have been hurting.

When he goes back to the TARDIS, he picks up the copy of _The Secret Garden_ lying on the console chair, holding it in his hands and wondering. Maybe he can't do anything for the Rose he knows, but perhaps he can do a few things for the family Pete left behind.

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><p>When Rose is two years old, she refuses to sleep through the night. No one can come up with any reason—she doesn't fuss much, only stays awake during hours an exhausted Jackie would prefer to be sleeping.<p>

Jackie and a small band of neighboring mothers try everything. Every bedtime story is told, every lullaby is sung, every stuffed animal is given a trial run. It's verging on two months of this when Christmas arrives, and dropped through the mail slot is a book of Rudyard Kipling's stories for children, neatly wrapped and accompanied by nothing else besides a note that reads, _Try these._ It is left early Christmas morning, and no one is awake to see a man in a leather jacket walking away.

That night, one of the stories from the book is what lulls Rose into a peaceful sleep. Jackie is so grateful she could cry. She checks every inch of the book for a card, some sign of who gave it, but finds nothing, and the neighbors all claim it wasn't them. She puts it down to modesty and never gives it another thought.

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><p>When Rose is five years old, she gets in trouble for fighting on the playground. One of the boys teases her about being the only one in the class who doesn't have a daddy, and Rose tackles him. The fight is broken up before any damage can be done, but Jackie is called into the school and Rose is given a warning.<p>

This is the year Jackie tells Rose about how Pete died. It is also the year she will go into a bookstore looking for a present for Rose, wondering what to buy a little girl who's struggling to understand why she doesn't have a father like everybody else.

She strikes up a conversation with a lanky man wearing a red jumper, with big ears and a Northern accent. The man leads her into a row of shelves, knowing the clerk will likely take offense at someone who doesn't work there giving book recommendations.

He presses a copy of _The Secret Garden_ into her hands. "She'll like this one. Friendship, gardening… a girl learning to move on after she loses her parents. It's fantastic."

Jackie never does ask how the man knew, but she takes his word for it and makes the purchase.

Rose spends all of Christmas day reading about Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary. She doesn't get into another fight after that.

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><p>When Rose is twelve years old, she asks for a red bicycle. Jackie tries, she honestly does, but money is tight and she can't fulfill this one, as much as she wants to. Of the few things on her list, this is the one she has her heart set on, and Jackie goes to bed on Christmas Eve wishing she didn't have to disappoint her daughter.<p>

She never could explain how, exactly, the red bicycle ended up in their apartment Christmas morning. She never thought of it as coming from the same person who'd left the book of stories ten years before, the same man who'd handed her _The Secret Garden_, a book her daughter has read to pieces over the past seven years.

She tells her non-believing twelve-year-old daughter that the bicycle is from Santa Claus. As much as Rose rolls her eyes, she doesn't stop smiling whenever she looks at the bike, and they have a happy Christmas that year.

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><p>When Rose is nineteen years old, she spends Christmas with Charles Dickens and the man who played Santa Claus all throughout her childhood. He can't give her another Christmas present this year, but he has another sort of present in mind.<p>

The Doctor returns at sundown, having left Rose at the church early in the morning. She's more willing to talk, but doesn't sound all that enthusiastic when the Doctor says he wants to take her somewhere. She raises an eyebrow when he tells her to find a dress she'd like to wear in the TARDIS wardrobe, but she obliges. She knows better than to question him when they land and he tells her to close her eyes and not open them until he tells her to.

He rests his hands on her shoulders after opening the TARDIS doors, gently guiding her out into a warm day. Afternoon sunlight meets her closed eyes, and she breathes in air that smells of summer, hears birdsong and wind whistling through trees.

"Open your eyes," the Doctor tells her, and when she does, she draws in her breath, disbelieving. They've landed the TARDIS in a walled garden lined with roses practically as far as she can see, and the trees are greener than she ever thought possible. Tears well in her eyes—happy tears, the happiest tears imaginable—as she turns to face the Doctor, fumbling for the words of the question she already knows the answer to.

"Doctor, where are we?"

"The gardens of Great Maytham Hall. Summer, 1899. The home of Frances Hodgson Burnett." He gives her that big smile, but watches her face as she laughs in disbelief and absolute happiness. "The place that inspired_ The Secret Garden_. She did all this, you know." He stretches out his arms, motioning to the roses, about to tell her the story—

—but he's stopped short by Rose launching herself into those outstretched arms, wrapping one of her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek and whispering a string of _thank you_s and words of wonder about the garden into the sun-warmed leather of his jacket. He laughs, wrapping his arms around her, and they stand there for quite some time in the summery evening air.


End file.
